Jessica's July

Hi there. I have been pretty busy lately, and have had some neat experiences that could be used as blog fodder, but have not had the time to sit and write anything. I can hardly believe it’s nearing the end of July already. I’m now sitting in my little apartment with my husband, father in law, 15-year-old sister in law, and 7-year-old half brother in law… and we are all melting. It’s 10:16pm and the thermometer’s needle is still hovering around 91 degrees. Our only hope at any relief is a small fan that is only pushing around the dense, moist heat and a large bucket that we have filled with cold water and some ice bricks. We have been taking turns sticking our feet in the bucket at last ditch efforts to keep our bodies from melting into large puddles of human ooze and irreplaceably damaging the couch/chairs/carpet… thus assuring that we would never get our deposit money back. How sad.
Anyhow, other than the triple digit heat that has been steadily attempting genocide of our country, I’ve had quite a few noteworthy experiences.

At the beginning of the month, my dear friend Nicole graced us with her presence for a whole week!!! It was SO much fun! We wandered downtown and hit all the “typical” landmarks … we even witnessed some quite INdiscrete sexual action behind the waterfall at Keller fountain, of which there is still debate over the genders of the participants (the consensus is female – for both parties). The best part of that particular experience was the FOUR other couples who excitedly walked towards Keller Fountain with the express intent of getting it on behind that waterfall… and their quick turnarounds and disappointed faces when they found “the spot” occupied. Who knew this was Portland Metro Make out Pointe? Not me, that’s for sure. There was one guy who seemed to know said spot well. He came to the fountain and found a good vantage point from which he could see the action behind the wall… and he just stood there and watched with such intent and pleasure… I honestly have no words for what was going on that evening. Later on, though, we walked down by the waterfront and got to hear some pretty awesome music coming from the Blues Festival… and then we got a nice lightning show! We finally started making our way home, stopping at Tonali’s Doughnut Shop. While Nicole was here we also went to OMSI and Bullwinkle’s, and Powells … overall, it was a fun week.

Last weekend was an exciting weekend, too… it was Shaun’s and my anniversary. We had originally planned on going to Seattle Friday night – Sunday night, but I ended up working until 6:00 that evening and we didn’t want to drive up so late. So instead we met up with some friends and had yummy Thai food for dinner and then went and saw the neat sand sculptures downtown. Afterwards we went to a late showing of Pirates of the Carribbean II. It was a good movie, but it didn’t start until after my normal bedtime, and it had been a CRAZY day already, so there are a few parts that I missed due to my eyelids’ lack of willpower.
Then Saturday morning we got up early and headed up to Seattle… hung out at the Pike Place Market for a bit, wandered through a few parks and then headed to the grocery store before heading back to the hotel to relax in a nice air-conditioned room.
Sunday we checked out of the hotel and then went over to Lake Union where we got to see some neat boats and stuff… then we took a free sail boat ride around the lake – it was SO much fun! We even got to see the houseboat made famous by Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle. Pretty cool! Our plan was to then go have lunch at one of our favorite little restaurants, but sadly it was gone! So we settled for Red Robin, which was still pretty neat – we have a little bit of history there (I’ll explain the great Iced Tea adventure some other time).
All in all it was an amazing weekend!
And now my sister in law is here for the week… so I’m looking forward to another week full of adventure and resourcefulness as we try to keep cool in this horrid heat.

There you go – the month of July thus far.

Ciao!